Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Post About Post Office

In 1944, if I remember right, I’d hurry back
to my dorm between classes to see what had arrived in the morningmail.So there must have been an afternoon mail
also – and this in wartime with the whole country mobilized, zero unemployment and
a tremendous labor shortage.

An envelope like this one, with its
triumphant FREE! Instead of a stamp, saved the just-drafted 18-year-old soldier
three cents.That’s not to be sneezed
at, actually.I had a part-time job, that
year, for 43 cents an hour, minimum wage.Figure it for yourself – the 3-cent stamp was a lot more expensive than today’s
45-cent stamp as a fraction of current minimum wages.

In 1944, of course, soldiers did not make
minimum wage.Maybe the figure had been
raised by then, but at the start of the war I remember the words of a song
about the Army that boasted “Twenty-One Dollars a Day! – Once a Month.”

Do today’s soldiers get to frank envelopes
for free postage?Or – never mind – do today’s
soldiers even know what an envelope is?

Hank came to Syracuse at 16 so he could get in two years of college before he was drafted. Army trained him in counter-intelligence (spying) and taught him Japanese. Ended up at 19 as part of the American occupation of Japan. Arranged with the Army to bring me over there as a proxy-married wife -- but I became engaged to Norm instead.

About Me

Okay. For starters, I'm 91 now, but I'm not changing the blog title. This is my 6th year of blogging. This being old is interesting. If I start telling you what it's like, understand, I AM NOT WHINING. it's more along the lines of -- I feel like an anthropologist exploring a new world -- Margaret Mead telling you what life is like on New Guinea. (If you're old, you have heard of her. If you aren't, you're welcome here anyhow.)